Congress finally considers aggressive e-voting overhaul

A new e-voting bill promises to address the most serious security problems …

In the wake of last year's e-voting debacle in Florida's Sarasota county and the widespread publicity regarding serious security flaws in computerized voting machines, there is considerable political momentum for e-voting reform. We've previously reported on a reform proposal by California's secretary of state. Congress is also getting in on the action.

HR 811 features several requirements that will warm the hearts of geek activists. It bans the use of computerized voting machines that lack a voter-verified paper trail. It mandates that the paper records be the authoritative source in any recounts, and requires prominent notices reminding voters to double-check the paper record before leaving the polling place. It mandates automatic audits of at least three percent of all votes cast to detect discrepancies between the paper and electronic records. It bans voting machines that contain wireless networking hardware and prohibits connecting voting machines to the Internet. Finally, it requires that the source code for e-voting machines be made publicly available.

The legislation received extensive hearings in recent weeks in the House Administration Committee's Subcommittee on Elections. The proposal has attracted broad support from public interest groups and security experts. Representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Brennan Center for Justice, and People for the American Way have all testified in support. An important endorsement came from Ed Felten, the Princeton security researcher who last year demonstrated that Diebold's e-voting machines can be infected by a vote-stealing virus. He testified in support of the legislation on March 23, emphasizing that paperless e-voting systems lack the transparency that is essential to secure elections.

The proposal wasn't without its detractors, however. Several state election officials testified about the practical challenges of implementing the new requirements. Chris Nelson, South Dakota's secretary of state, warned that many of the requirements in the legislation would conflict with the states' own election procedures. For example, South Dakota's current procedures allow certification of election results in seven days, but Nelson said the audit procedures of HR 811 could delay the certification of election results by weeks. Gail W. Mahoney from Jackson County, Michigan, warned that many election officials would be unable to meet the tight deadlines in the legislation.

A few witnesses testified against the very notion of requiring a voter-verified paper trail. Disability rights advocate Harold Snider compared opponents of e-voting to Luddites and chastised them for their lack of faith in technology. He also argued that computerized voting machines would provide better access to the disabled, and warned that requiring paper trails would discourage their adoption. Donald F. Norris, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, emphasized the flaws of paper-based voting systems and argued that computerized voting machines were more secure.

Serious concerns were raised regarding the flaws with the printers used to produce paper audit trails. Norris cited a Las Vegas survey in which fewer than 40 percent of voters actually checked the paper record of their vote before leaving the polling place. An election official in North Carolina reported that there were hundreds of printer failures in that state during the 2006 election. He cited a Georgia study about the logistical challenges of storing, tracking, and manually counting thousands of votes recorded on unwieldy rolls of paper tape.

The pleas of state officials for more flexibility in implementing the law's requirements deserve serious consideration. Some states may have election procedures that match or exceed the rigor of the federal requirements, and it would be foolish to require a state to overhaul its election procedures if the existing procedures are consistent with the spirit of the new federal requirements. Luckily, the Holt bill does give states some options. For example, states are allowed to use auditing procedures other than those spelled out in HR 811, as long as the National Institute for Science and Technology certifies that they will be no less effective.

The concerns about problems with printing and voter-verification are also worth taking seriously, but here states have a simple solution: they can decline to use computerized voting machines entirely. The Holt bill gives states the option of using old-fashioned optical-scan paper ballots, which have been used with few problems for decades. Although some activists have argued for a formal ban on computerized voting machines, the approach of Holt's legislation gives states more flexibility while avoiding the most serious pitfalls of computerized voting.

As we've emphasized before, the details of e-voting reform legislation matter. The critics' concerns should not be brushed aside lightly. But HR 811 appears to have been drafted with careful attention to such details. Although it certainly has some room for improvement—especially in ensuring that states are not forced to overhaul election procedures that already work well—it's a thoughtful piece of legislation that promises to substantially improve the integrity of our elections.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.